Optimize Website Speed in China

Testing your website speed for Chinese users is essential for entering the Chinese market. We often see slow or inaccessible web apps crippling a great product. Below, we write a practical guide on how to test your website speed for Chinese users.

Testing ensures fast loading times

Before testing your website’s page loading time for Chinese users, run through a quick test and see whether there are any issues with speed for users from the US. We recommend using google lighthouse. After we established a picture of the overall website performance, let’s get into measuring speed for Chinese users.

First, we should not, that the speed your website loads is different for many users in China. Why is that the case? Access to the internet outside of China depends on your carrier (one of three: China Unicom, China Mobile, China Telecom) and the region (e.g. China Telecom Shanghai) because all of those deploy different rules of accessing the internet outside of China.

Don’t worry about that for now. We will show you several tools for measuring website speed in China. Below we are listing the ones we found most helpful for our clients.

Test your China site speed with 17CE.com

17CE is a company based in Shanghai that offers website speed and real-time monitoring. Enter your website’s address at 17ce.com and click ‘Check it’. Hint: We suggest translating the site via e.g. Google translate.

After loading, you will find a map that indicates speeds from different servers located in different parts of China. Below, 17CE offers a list of specific servers actually showing their corresponding internet service providers (ISPs).

For advanced users, the tool also shows ping, traceroute and other information, that might help you to analyze further speed issues for Chinese users.

We suggest, you don’t take those results too seriously. Having red points on that map might indicate a slow website for some Chinese users, but won’t give us any details, for now. Let’s get into those below.

Test your China site speed with Webkaka

On first look, the site is full of blinking gifs and advertisements. But don’t worry, it is funny, but the tool is great!

Besides average loading time, Webhaka will show you loading speed, DNS resolution time, connection time, content download time and speed and more.

Similar to 17CE, the tool will show you a breakdown of site load speed by regions and carrier/ISP.

We have good experience in using both tools (17CE and webkaka) to get a full picture on how fast your site loads in China.

Continue monitoring your site speed

If you continue to focus on the Chinese market, our best approach with clients so far is setting up Google Analytics as a tool for continuously keeping a check on website speed for their Chinese users.

Google Analytics does work in China, and you can check our guide for a step-by-step guide.

Once you set up Google Analytics on your site, you will be able to set up triggers for sitespeed, bounce rate and other measures. Once the website for example slows down 20% in one day for Chinese users from Shanghai, you could get an email notification.

If you have more questions feel free to reach out to us at hi@web3.consulting!

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Testing your website speed in China, in short:

Follow these three steps

Establish a baseline speed test

Use google's Lighthouse in the Chrome browser.

Test China-speed multiple times

Use several tools such as 17CE and Webhaka.

Continue monitoring

Enter gAnalytics and add Custom Alerts.